The driveway
Start from a common job, then replace every figure with your takeoff. Changing method never overwrites a rate you already typed. This is not a sealcoat calculator (coats and crack fill) and not a concrete-pour calculator (cubic yards of slab).
Your crew rates
A $38/h hand loaded at 32% is $50.16. Quoting the raw wage on a published $3.50-a-square-foot special is how a 1,000-square-foot full-depth that looked fine turns into a two-day loss after the first sawcut.
Your bid
- Method and area
- Thickness and extras
- Hot-mix tons
- Crew hours
- Loaded labor
- Mix, dump, gravel, tack, fees
- Travel + equipment
- Overhead
- Total cost
- Profit at this price
- Price per square foot
- Effective hourly rate
- Walk-away price
A bid link carries your own rates — wage, burden, overhead, and target margin — so the page reopens exactly as you left it. Send it to yourself or your crew. The numbers ride after the #, which is never sent to a server, so copying a link uploads nothing. The customer should get the price, not the link.
Same driveway, three methods
Where the hours go
Where the cost goes
Transparent arithmetic from your own inputs. Starting hours and mix rates are common ballpark figures, not an industry standard, a paving specification, or a code determination — replace them with your own takeoff.
Hand the customer a proposal
The price above is for you. This is the page you print or save as a PDF and give to the customer — your details, their details, the scope, the deposit split, and a line for them to sign. Your business details are saved on this device so you only type them once; the customer’s details are never saved.
Everything on the printed page is text you typed or a number this calculator worked out. It contains no warranty, lien, or cancellation wording — those depend on your jurisdiction and your contract, and this tool is not the place to invent them.
Common questions
What does this paving estimate include?
The price adds up hot-mix tons for the driveway and apron by thickness, milling tons and dump cost for a mill-and-overlay, demo and dump tons for a full-depth replacement, a failed-base gravel patch, sawcut, tack coat, paving fabric when selected, a permit line, travel and equipment, overhead, and your target margin — all from the method, area, and rates you enter, not a flat price list.
Why does the same driveway price differently as an overlay, mill-and-overlay, or full-depth job?
Each method starts from its own suggested machine hours and material rates: a full-depth job adds demo and base-gravel hours an overlay never touches, and a mill-and-overlay adds milling hours and dump cost an overlay skips. The three-way comparison prices your same takeoff under each method’s starting kit so you can see when a failed base or a thick apron flips which method is actually cheaper.
Does it account for the street apron and a failed base separately from the driveway?
Yes. The apron is its own area and thickness, added to the driveway to get the total paved square footage that drives mix tons and most labor. A failed-base patch is a separate square footage and gravel thickness, capped at the paved area, and its gravel tons and hours only apply where you enter it.
Is my data uploaded anywhere?
No account and no network requests — the calculator runs entirely in your browser. Your bid is saved in this browser’s local storage between visits, and a bid link you copy carries those same numbers in the page’s URL hash rather than sending anything to a server.
What’s the difference between the bid price and the walk-away price?
The bid price already includes your target margin on top of labor, materials, and overhead. The walk-away price is the total cost underneath it — labor, mix, milling or demo dump, gravel, sawcut, and every other line item — the point below which the job stops being profitable at all.
Does this check pavement condition, code, or engineering requirements?
No. Hours and material rates are ballpark shop figures you can edit, not a paving specification, a pavement-condition assessment, or an engineering stamp. Deciding whether a driveway needs a full-depth rebuild rather than an overlay is still a call for the site visit; this tool only prices whichever method you tell it to.